The Albanian Parliament has given the green light to the agreement reached between the Prime Minister, Edi Rama, and his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, to transfer to the Balkan country some of the immigrants rescued by Italy in international waters. This is the last procedure that was missing to ratify a very controversial pact, criticized by the opposition and humanitarian organizations, which represents the EU’s first experiment to outsource its migration management to a country located outside the community bloc.
In Tirana, after a heated debate, the parliamentary majority of Edi Rama’s socialist group has been enough for the measure to go ahead despite the strong opposition of the conservative Albanian Democratic Party, which even took it before the Constitutional Court considering that it violates the country’s Magna Carta for ceding its territorial jurisdiction to another State. Albania’s highest court, however, rejected these arguments and determined that the project is “in accordance with the Constitution.”
In practice, the pact involves the construction of two centers in Albania with Italian jurisdiction to process asylum applications from immigrants and proceed with the deportations of those who consider that they do not have the right to remain in Europe. Migrants rescued by Italian ships in non-European waters will be transferred there, while ships from humanitarian organizations will continue to disembark in Italy. The measure also does not include immigrants who arrive independently to its coasts or minors, pregnant women and other vulnerable people who require immediate assistance.
The two centers will have different functions. In the port of Shëngjin, in the north of the country, a structure will be built for disembarkation and identification procedures, while about twenty kilometers inland, in Gjäder, a permanence and repatriation center will be created. All of this will be borne by Italy, with a cost of over 60 million euros, and it is estimated that they will be able to host around 36,000 people each year to manage asylum requests or eventual repatriations.
With this, Rama wanted to do a political favor for Meloni, who has become the biggest sponsor of Albania’s accession to the European Union, despite the concerns of humanitarian organizations. “Those who disembark in Albania and enter the centers in this country – including refugees and asylum seekers – will be automatically detained and will not be able to leave the detention centers for a period of up to 18 months. According to international law, automatic detention is inherently arbitrary and, consequently, illegitimate,” warned Matteo De Bellis, Amnesty International Migration and Asylum researcher.
The terms are very reminiscent of the first agreement reached by the United Kingdom with Rwanda, a plan declared illegal by the British Constitutional Court, although Rome defends that this is a completely different situation because migrants will be treated according to “Italian and European standards.” “. Given the many questions about respect for Italian and community laws, the European Commission considers that the agreement does not violate European law because it is “outside of it.” With the parliamentary green light, construction can now begin.
